The Kingdom of Gods

  Eventually I found myself in the solarium, the Arameri’s private garden. It was a natural thing to follow the white-pebbled path through the manicured trees. After a time I reached the foot of the narrow white spire that jutted up from the palace’s heart. The stairway door was not locked, as it had normally been in the old days, so I climbed the tight, steep twist of steps until I emerged onto the Altar — the flattened, enclosed top of the spire where, for centuries, the Arameri had conducted their Ritual of Succession.

  Here I sat on the floor. Countless mortals had died in this chamber, spending their lives to wield the Stone of Earth and transfer the power of gods from one Arameri generation to the next. The spire was empty now, as dusty and disused as the underpalace. I supposed the Arameri did their successions elsewhere. The hollow plinth that had once stood at the center of the room was gone, shattered on the day Yeine and the Stone became one. The crystal walls had been rebuilt, the cracked floors repaired, but there was a still lifelessness to the room that I did not remember feeling during the days of my incarceration.

  I pulled En off its chain and set it on the floor before me, rolling it back and forth and remembering what it had felt like to ride a sun. Aside from that, I thought of nothing. Thus I was as ready as I could have been when the daystone floor suddenly changed, brightening just a little. The room felt more alive, too.

  He had always had that effect, in the old days.

  I looked up. The glow of the daystone made for a nice reflection in the glass, so it was easy to see the two figures behind me: Glee and someone the same height. Broader. Male. Glee nodded to me in the reflection, then vanished, leaving the two of us alone.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hello, Sieh,” said Itempas.

  I waited, then smiled. “No ‘It’s been a while,’ or ‘You’re looking well’?”

  “You aren’t looking well.” He paused. “Does it seem a long time to you?”

  “Yes.” It wouldn’t have, before I’d turned mortal. He had been mortal for a century himself, though; he understood.

  Footsteps, heavy and precise, approached me from behind. Something moved on the periphery of my vision. For an instant I thought he would sit beside me, but that would have been too strange for both of us. He walked past me and stopped at the edge of the Altar, gazing through the glass at the night-dark, branch-shrouded horizon beyond.

  I gazed at his back. He wore a long leather coat that had been bleached almost white. His white hair was long, too, twisted into a heavy mane of thick cords, like Teman cable-locks but bare of ornamentation other than a clasp that kept them neat and controlled. White trousers and shirt. Brown boots. I found myself perversely pleased that he’d been unable to find boots in white.

  “I will, of course, accept Nahadoth’s offer,” he said. “If it is within my power to heal you, or at least stop your aging, I will do all I can.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  He returned the nod. Though he faced the horizon, his eyes were on me in the glass reflection. “You intend to stay with these mortals?”

  “I suppose. Ahad wants me to keep him informed of what the Arameri are doing.” Then I remembered. “Of course, you’re Ahad’s boss, so …”

  “You may stay.” His gaze was intent, lacking none of its old power despite his mortal condition. “And you should stay, to be near the mortals you love.”

  I frowned at him. His eyes flicked away from mine. “Their lives are too brief,” he added. “One should not take that time for granted.”

  He meant Glee’s mother. And perhaps the first Shahar Arameri, too. He had loved her despite her obsessive, destructive madness.

  “How do you feel about the Arameri dumping you?” I asked, a bit nastily. I didn’t have the energy for real nastiness. I was just trying to change the subject.

  I heard the creak of leather and the rasp of hair as he shrugged. “They are mortal.”

  “No tears shed, hmm?” I sighed, lying back on the stone and stretching my arms above my head. “The whole world will follow them, you know, and turn away from you. It’s already happening. Maybe they’ll keep calling it the Bright, but it’ll really be the Twilight.”

  “Or the Dawn.”

  I blinked. Something I hadn’t considered. That made me sit up on one elbow and narrow my eyes at him. He stood the way he always had: legs apart, arms folded, motionless. Same old Dayfather, even in mortal flesh. He did not change.

  Except.

  “Why did you allow Glee Shoth to live?” I asked.

  “For the same reason I allowed her mother to live.”

  I shook my head in confusion. “Oree Shoth? Why would you have killed her?” I scowled. “She wouldn’t put up with your shit, is that it?”

  If I hadn’t been watching him in the glass, I would never have believed what I saw. He smiled. “She wouldn’t, no. But that wasn’t what I meant. She was also a demon.”

  This rendered me speechless. In the silence that fell, Itempas finally turned to me. I flinched in shock, even though he looked the same as the last time I’d seen him, apart from the hair and the clothes. And yet something about him — something I could not define — was different.

  “Do you plan to kill Remath Arameri and her children?” he asked.

  I stiffened. He knew. I said nothing, and he nodded, point made.

  Suddenly I was full of nervous tension. I got to my feet, shoving En into a pocket. The Altar was too small for real pacing, but I tried anyway, walking over to him — and then I stopped, seeing my own reflection beside his in the glass. He turned, too, following my gaze, and we looked at ourselves. Me, short and wiry and defensive and confused. I had developed a slouch in my manifest maturity, mostly because I did not like being so tall. Him: big and powerful and elegant, as he had always been. Yet his eyes were so full of knowing and yearning that almost, almost, I wanted him to be my father again.

  Almost, almost, I forgave him.

  But that could not be, either. I hunched and looked away. Itempas lowered his eyes, and a long, solid silence formed in the enclosed space.

  “Tell Glee to come back and get you,” I said at last, annoyed. “I’ve said all I’m going to say.”

  “Glee is mortal, and I have no magic. We cannot speak as gods do; we must use words. And actions.”

  I frowned. “What, then, you’re staying here?”

  “And traveling with you to the new palace, yes.”

  “Yeine will be here, too.” At this I clenched my fists and resumed pacing, in tight angry arcs. “Oh, but you must know that. You came here for her.” The two of them, entwined, his lips on the nape of her neck. I forced this image from my mind.

  “No. I came for you.”

  Words. Actions.

  Both meaningless. They should not have made my throat clench the way they did. I fought them with anger, glaring at his back. “I could call Naha. I could ask him to kill you over and over, until you beg to truly die.” And because I was a brat, I added, “He’ll do it, too, for me.”

  “Is that truly what you wish?”

  “Yes! I’d do it myself if I could!”

  To my surprise, Itempas pivoted and came toward me, opening his coat. When he reached into one of the inner-breast pockets, I tensed, ready to fight. He pulled out a sheathed dagger, and I grabbed for En. But then he handed the dagger to me, hilt-first. It was a small, light thing, I found when I took it; a child’s weapon, in those parts of the world where mortals gave their children sharp toys. Not altogether different from the dagger I’d used to damage Shahar’s innocence, ten years before — except this dagger was strapped securely into the leather sheath, held in place by a loop about the guardpiece. No one would be able to draw this blade by accident.

  As I turned the thing in my fingers, wondering why in his own name Itempas had given it to me, my nose caught the faint whiff of old, dried blood.

  “A gift from Glee,” he said. “To me. If death ever becomes preferable to living.”

  I kn
ew what it was, then. The gift of mortality, Enefa had called it. Glee’s blood was on the knife — her terrifying, poisonous demon blood. She had given Itempas a way out of his imprisonment, if he ever found the courage to take it.

  My hand clenched convulsively around the knife’s hilt. “If you ever use this, the mortal realm will die.”

  “Yes.”

  “Glee will die.”

  “If she hasn’t already died by then, yes.”

  “Why would she give this to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I stared at him. He wasn’t being deliberately obtuse. He must have asked her. Either he hadn’t believed her answer, or — more likely, given how much she’d taken after him — she hadn’t bothered to answer. And he had accepted her silence.

  Then he knelt before me, flicking his coat behind himself in the process, so that it spread out gracefully along the white stone floor. He lifted his head, too, partly because he was an arrogant son of a demon and partly to give me easy access to his chest and throat. Such a handsome, proud offering.

  “Bastard,” I said, clenching my fist around the knife hilt. Death. I held the death of the universe in my fist. “Arrogant, selfish, evil bastard.”

  Itempas merely waited. The knife was small, but I could angle it just so, get it between the ribs easily to prick his heart. Hells, if Oree Shoth had been a demon, too, then her daughter was more than half god. Even a scratch tainted with her blood might do the trick.

  I unfastened the loop, but my fingers were shaking. When I took the hilt in my hand to draw it, I couldn’t. My hands just wouldn’t move. Eventually I let them — and the dagger — drop to my sides.

  “If you want me to die —” he began.

  “Shut up,” I whispered.

  “Shut up, gods damn you. I hate you.”

  “If you hate me —”

  “Shut up!” He fell silent, and I cursed and threw the dagger to the floor between us. The sound of leather on daystone made an echoing crack from the chamber’s walls. I had begun to cry. I raked my hands through my hair. “Just shut up, all right? Gods, you’re so insufferable! You can’t make me choose something like that! I’ll hate you if I damn well please!”

  “All right.” His voice was soft, soothing. Against my will, I remembered times — rare but precious — when we had sat together in his placid realm, watching time dance. I had always been conscious of the fact that he and I would never be friends. Lovers was out of the question. But father and son? That much we could do.

  “All right, Sieh,” he said now, so gently. He did not change. “Hate me if you like.”

  The urge to love him was so powerful that I shook with it.

  I turned and stormed over to the stair entrance, trotting down the steps. When I looked up, just before my head passed beyond the floor’s threshold, I saw Itempas watching me. He had not picked up the knife. He had, however, changed: his face was wet with tears.

  I ran. I ran. I ran.

  The door to Deka’s apartment was not locked. No servant would invade his privacy unannounced, and no highblood would come near him as yet. He was an unknown commodity. His family feared him, as he’d wished. I should have, too, because he was more powerful than me, but I had always loved strong people.

  He rose from the worktable at which he’d been sitting — not a standard furniture item in Sky. Already he’d made changes. “Who the — Sieh?” He looked exhausted. He’d been up most of the night before, working with the scrivener corps to examine the assassins’ masks. Yet here he was, barefoot and tunicless, hair mussed, still awake. I saw sketches on several scrolls and a stack of sheets marked with the Litaria’s official sigil. Personnel for the new palace, perhaps. “Sieh, what …?”

  “There’s no need to fear me,” I said, coming around the work-table at him. I held his eyes as I would those of any prey. He stared back. So easy to catch them when they wanted to be caught. “I may be older than the world, but I’m also just a man; no god is ever only one thing. If the whole of me frightens you, love whichever part you like.”

  He flinched, confusion and desire and guilt all rising and sinking out of sight in his face. Finally he sighed as I reached him. His shoulders slumped a little in defeat. “Sieh.”

  So much meaning in that one word. The wind, but also lightning, and need as raw as an open wound. I put my arms around him. The power written into his skin pulsed once, whispering warningly to me of pain and slaughter. I pressed my face to his shoulder and clenched my fists on the back of his shirt, wishing it was gone so I could touch those deadly marks.

  “Sieh …” Deka began. He’d gone stiff at my embrace, holding his arms out as if afraid to touch me. “Sieh, gods —”

  “Just let me do this,” I breathed into his shoulder. “Please, Deka.”

  His hands landed on my shoulders, too light, hesitant. That wouldn’t do. I pulled him harder against me and he made a soft, strained sound. Then his arms slid around me, tightening. I felt the scrape of nails through my shirt. His face pressed into my hair. A hand cupped the back of my neck.

  There was a time of stillness. It wasn’t long, because nothing in the mortal realm lasts long. It felt long, however, which was all that really mattered.

  When I’d finally had enough, I pulled back and waited for the questions. Mortals always asked questions. Why did you come here? would be first, I was certain, because he wanted me and probably hoped that I wanted him. That wasn’t it at all, but I would tell him what he wanted to hear.

  A long, awkward silence fell. Deka fidgeted and said, “I need at least a few hours of sleep.”

  I nodded, still waiting.

  He looked away. “You don’t have to leave.”

  So I didn’t.

  We lay in his bed, side by side, chaste. I waited, expecting his hands, his mouth, the weight of his body. I would give him what he wanted. Might even enjoy it. Anything not to be alone.

  He shifted closer and put his hand over mine. I waited for more, but a long while passed. Eventually, I heard long, even breaths from his side of the bed. Surprised, I turned my head. He was dead asleep.

  I gazed at him until I slept, too.

  Cycles.

  Deka woke some time before dawn and shook me awake. Quite without planning, we did what mortal lovers have done since time immemorial, stumbling blearily around each other as we each prepared for the day. While he spoke to the servants, ordering tea and summoning a clerk to distribute messages to the scriveners, assassins, and courtiers he’d chosen to accompany us, I went into the bathroom and made myself presentable. Then while he did the same, I drank the tea and peeked at his desk, where he’d scribbled notes about defensive magic and begun penning some sort of request to the Litaria. He caught me doing this as he emerged from his bedroom, but he didn’t seem to care, walking past me and checking to see how much tea I’d left him. (Not much. This earned me a glower. I shrugged.)

  We proceeded to the forecourt. A group of thirty or so scriveners, soldiers, and various highbloods were already there, including Shahar, who stood dressed in a furred traveling cloak against the brisk morning air. She nodded to us as we arrived, and I nodded back, which made her blink. Servants were arriving, too, carrying trunks and satchels that probably contained more of the highbloods’ belongings than their own. As the eastern horizon grew more solidly pale with the imminence of dawn, Remath arrived — and with her, to my great surprise, came Itempas and Yeine. I saw many of the other assembled folk peer at the latter in confusion, since they were obviously not of the family. Yeine stopped some ways back, turning toward the distant horizon as if hearing its call; this was her time. Itempas broke off from Remath as they reached the group, coming to stand near the rest of us, though not close enough for conversation. He watched Yeine.

  Deka turned, staring at Itempas, and then abruptly his eyes widened. “Sieh, is that —”

  “Yes,” I snapped. I folded my arms and carefully ignored both of them.

  Ramina was there
as well, clearly awaiting Remath, as was Morad, who was dressed for travel. That surprised me. Was Remath willing even to give up her lover to this madness? Perhaps they were not so close after all. Morad’s face was impassive, but I suspected she was less than happy about it.

  “Good morning, my friends,” Remath said, though aside from Morad, no one there was her friend. “By now matters have been explained to you. Naturally you will be unhappy at the short notice, but this was necessary for the sake of secrecy and safety. I trust there are no objections.”

  In any other circumstance, there would have been, but these were Arameri, and particularly ones who had been chosen for their wits and value. Silence greeted her in response.

  “Very well. We await one final guest, and then we will proceed.”

  Abruptly the world gave a faint, and deliciously familiar, shudder. It was a delicate thing, yet powerful; even the mortals could feel it. The daystone beneath our feet creaked ominously, while the satinbell trees in the nearby Garden of the Hundred Thousand shivered, shedding some of their perfect dangling blossoms. And I closed my eyes, inhaling so that I would not whoop for joy.

  “Sieh?” Shahar’s voice, alarmed and puzzled. Her ancestors had known this sensation, but no Arameri in a hundred years had felt it. I opened my eyes and smiled at her, so fondly that she blinked and almost smiled back.

  “My father returns,” I whispered.

  Beyond us, Yeine turned; she was smiling, too. Itempas — he had turned away from us, gazing off toward the palace as if it was suddenly the most interesting of sights. But I saw the stiffness in his shoulders, the effort that it took him to stay relaxed.